Roanoke Island: The Town That Vanished!

On August 18, 1590, John White's ship reached Roanoke Island, off the coast of present-day North Carolina. White raced up the beach, looking for his family and more than one hundred other English colonists. Yet there was no trace of them. The colonists' boats were missing. Their homes were gone. White, the colony's leader, found a few letters carved into a tree and a wooden gatepost. What had happened while he was away? Had the colonists been attacked and killed by Native Americans or the Spanish? Were the carved letters clues to their whereabouts? Look inside to find out more about the Roanoke colony, including the different theories about what became of the colonists.